


Wolf Mother, Where You Been?

by JaggedCliffs



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Dubious consent because of arranged marriage situations, F/M, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, The dubious consent is worse in chapter 2 than chapter1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:08:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22093882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaggedCliffs/pseuds/JaggedCliffs
Summary: Two possibilities. Two stories.Frigga had a daughter. Frigga raised and loved her daughter. Frigga lost a daughter, first to her daughter's desire for war, then to Odin's idea of punishment. Frigga is terrified of losing her sons as well.Frigga had no daughter. Odin and his daughter ravaged Frigga's realm, until Frigga married to keep her realm safe. Frigga has two sons, and is terrified of losing them the way Odin lost his daughter.Two possibilities. Two stories, mirrors of each other, on Frigga and her relationship with Hela.
Relationships: Frigga | Freyja & Hela (Marvel), Frigga | Freyja & Loki (Marvel), Frigga | Freyja & Thor (Marvel), Frigga | Freyja/Odin (Marvel)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 75





	1. You're a Taker, Devils-Maker

**Author's Note:**

> Happy 2020 everyone! I was hoping to get this fic out by New Year's Day at the latest, but unfortunately leading up to New Year's I had to make two cakes, make 2 litres of mulled wine, and help my family prepare for 11 guests. So January 2nd is close enough.
> 
> I started this fic soon after _Thor: Ragnarok_ as a way to fit Frigga into Ragnarok's new canon. Both stories end up kind of awful for Frigga. Parts of these two stories are drawn from the comics and mythology. I tried to make these fics match up with all three films' canon, but basing a story off of partially retconned canon and few vague lines here and there about Hela and her history was more difficult than I thought.
> 
> Also, I know that in _Infinity War_ , Thor said that Hela was his “half-sister”. But I already had this fic long-written by then, and well, how do we know Thor wasn't just making assumptions, because it's not like Odin or Hela told him anything either way now, hmmm?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frigga was long ago arranged to be Odin's wife. She was young when she she married. Young when she had her first child. Young when her husband decided to make the realms kneel.

Asgard and Vanaheim had been sister realms, almost twins, allied since Buri's time. “Like you and your sister,” Father told Frigga as she sat on his knee. “And sometimes, like siblings, we quarrel.”

Frigga thought of how much she liked playing with Gunnhilde and sneaking off with her to the forests, but also how annoying Gunnhilde could be when she cried and threw her dolls and little sparks of seiðr at Frigga. And Frigga supposed that made sense.

Still, she didn't feel any better – holding a squirming Gunnhilde's hand while the nannies told them not to worry – as she watched Father and Mother march off to war. Frigga knew that King Bor was old and wanted more land, but she didn't see why it had to be _their_ land.

Eventually, Bor must have decided he had enough land, since Father and Mother returned the next year. Vanaheim and Asgard had come to an agreement, Father and Mother said. The two realms were better off together, not set apart. Peace had been made, and they were to exchange three nobles from each realm. “To learn from each other,” Mother explained, with a tired glance at Father, “and to symbolize how close our realms truly are.”

It wasn't until Frigga was older that she understood the word “hostage.”

And it wasn't until she was _much_ older than that she discovered another component to Asgard and Vanaheim's truce: the eldest son of Asgard and the eldest daughter of Vanheim, Prince and Princess, were to be joined in marriage.

Their wedding was designed to solidify the two realms' unity, strength, and kinship.

As was their daughter.

~ ~ ~

They were young when they had her, and young when they raised her. Bor passed soon after Frigga and Odin's marriage, dying before his granddaughter was born. Odin ascended to the throne, Frigga at his side, barely a year after her arrival in Asgard. And Frigga found herself queen of a realm she only knew through her lessons and books.

Frigga did not love Odin, not at first. Theirs was a marriage of duty, an agreement between their parents to end a senseless war, and Frigga had long ago accepted it as a fact, if not a desire; their love crept in over the year, wending its way into her heart. Frigga did not love Asgard, not at first, with its cold, golden structures, with all its flora and greenery carefully cordoned-off or controlled – much the same with the way they treated their seiðr.

And as Frigga felt the child grow in her belly, the babe's power clear and strong, Frigga was not sure if she could love her daughter at first. She had known one day she would bear children, but not so _soon_. She was _too young_ , she thought with faint panic when she felt her daughter kicking inside her. She was not ready for the burden of both a child and a queenship of a foreign realm.

Yet the first time she held Hela in her arms, her daughter's fine black hair plastered to her head, her little eyes squinting curiously up at the world, Frigga had never felt such _love_ in her life.

Little Hela, with all of Odin's strength and power, tied Frigga to her new life in a way Odin never could.

Little Hela, who would run wild with her black hair streaming behind her in the gardens Frigga was growing – gardens that flourished tumultuous and untamed, just like in Vanaheim. Under Frigga's watchful eye, Hela tackled shrubs like they had offended her and attacked the trees like they were giants. Under Frigga's careful guidance, Hela learned how to fan the Asgard-born seiðr inside her, to regrow branches that had broken off in her vicious attacks, to help trambled rose bushes sprout from seedling to bloom. Frigga told her the branches would regrow in time, and the flowers would blossom again. But Hela felt guilty all the same, and wished them to return – even if the branches were twisted and never could support leaves again, and the roses' thorns were twice as sharp as their parent plant and their petals withered.

That they returned imperfect, Hela did not seem to mind.

Gardening was never where her strengths lay anyway.

From Odin, Hela learned the art of battle, and from Frigga, she learned how to channel her power into that art.

The moment Hela conjured her first knife after weeks of Frigga's patient lessons and demonstrations of the technique time and time again, Hela had raced across the palace to Odin, screaming, _“Father, Father, watch!_ Watch what I can do!”

Frigga loved her daughter, but Hela undoubtedly favoured Odin's tutelage over hers. Frigga would try to teach Hela illusions and tricks of light, and Hela would beg off to practice her knives with Odin and the training instructors. Frigga taught Hela to harness her power into summoning longer and sharper blades, and Hela would spend months training to fight, her seiðr lessons sparse and scattered. When Frigga had taught Hela all she could about spinning seiðr into blades, Frigga's lessons fell by the wayside altogether in favour of the training grounds, and even the occasional spar with Odin when he had the time – an event that all the denizens of Asgard came to watch.

For her coming of age, Hela received two gifts. The first was Frigga's idea, a hammer commissioned from the Dwarfs. Not just any hammer, but one that would return to Hela's hand with but a thought. A hammer that only Hela – and Odin too, but that was a given – could lift. It was a safeguard. Because if Hela ever reached her limits, if she was ever left without the power to summon even a dagger, then she would still have one weapon left. One that could not be taken from her.

When Frigga presented it, Hela tossed her head and laughed. “Thank-you Mother, it is a fine gift, and the smithing is impeccable...but what need have I of another weapon when I can conjure my own?” To demonstrate, she flicked a sword out into her grasp and used it flip Frigga's hammer into her other hand. She kissed Frigga on the cheek and hung Mjolnir on her belt.

But she rarely wielded it.

The second gift was Odin's idea. A direwolf pup, one who's birthing had been imbued with magic to make him thrice as large and twice as fierce as even the most aggressive direwolf. When Odin presented the pup, Hela let out a squeal that Frigga thought she'd left behind with her childhood. Fenrir accompanied her everywhere, from the dinner table – until he outgrew the table – to her every adventure beyond Asgard. Fenrir played and fought alongside her in the training grounds until it seemed that the wolf could read Hela's mind, working in tandem with her to defeat any foe. Even Odin couldn't best Hela when she had Fenrir by her side.

The Goddess of Triumph, Frigga thought Hela might be named as she and Odin watched their daughter on the training ground, besting everyone from the Einherjar to the Valkyrie. Or perhaps the Goddess of War, since the stories of Hela's battles had spread throughout the realms – not to mention the feast hall. Both were titles that the mortals of Midgard had graced her father with. It was only fitting his daughter refine one of his traits.

~ ~ ~

Hela was technically a woman grown, if only by a couple centuries, when Muspelheim began making trouble. The fire giants had grown bold, venturing outside of their realm’s borders and leaving destruction and scorched earth in their wake.

Asgard had to protect the realms from their terror. As the strongest, brightest of the realms, it was their duty.

Besides, Surtur and his ilk were prophesied to destroy Asgard one day. “It's better to stop them before they can start,” Hela agreed when Odin told her of the plan, nodding as the three of them studied a map of the realms. “Beat them back, so they know better than to challenge Asgard ever again.”

First, they took their armies to the Eldjotnar who were burning the outermost settlements on the other realms. Then Frigga took half the army and Valkyrie to Vanaheim while Odin, Hela, and the rest landed on Alfheim and Niðavellir. Each world where Asgard's armies landed, the realms' warriors joined by their side, defending home and hearth. On Vanaheim, Frigga rode beside her sister for the first time in almost a thousand years. Fighting beside her people by birth and her people by marriage, Frigga felt something akin to joy.

_This_ , she thought as she entwined her spells with her sister, _this_ must be how Odin and Hela feel when the fight. Side by side, she and Gunnhilde wove attacks they had practised in their youth, shared jokes like they were still girls giggling under blankets well past their bedtime...If battle was a rush like _this_ to the Æsir, Frigga believed she understood it.

Muspelheim was no match for the four realms' combined fury. The Eldjotnar retreated.

And Asgard followed.

Odin took Hela, their army, and the fiercest of the Valkyrie to the heart of Muspelheim. There, they decimated the Eldjotnar, put out the fires of their homeland, shattered their caverns holding hordes of the beasts, and forced Sutur far, far underground.

“It will be thousands of years before they _dare_ breathe a flame beyond their borders,” Hela bragged at the feast hall, and Asgard cheered.

Frigga, filled with love for her powerful, fierce daughter, cheered with them.

~ ~ ~

With Musplheim's rise, Jotunheim grew restless too. And as with Musplheim, it was Asgard's duty to defend the realms from Jotunheim's savagery.

Except when Asgard's forces landed outside the icy palace, Jotunheim was willing to negotiate a truce.

Odin disagreed.

“A truce happens between equals,” he spat at the Jotun king across the battlefield.

When the enraged Jotun king ordered the charged, Hela grinned, and whistled for Fenrir.

This time, Frigga's sword was not needed. Instead, she joined hands with other seiðkona around her, as did the the other circles of seiðkona and seiðman scattered across the landscape. Together, they wrapped the troops in a cocoon of warmth to ward against Jotunheim chill's...and did the same to the Jotnar. Through the haze of seiðr, Frigga could see the giants growing sluggish with heat, their ice swords stunted, warped, and melting – easily shattered against Æsir blades. She could see Hela, a whirlwind of blades, and felt a surge of pride as Hela cut down two Jotnar who had tried to sneak upon her from behind. From time to time Hela even drew Mjolnir from her belt, striking foes far across the field.

It was there, during that icy battle, that Hela won her title.

The Goddess of Death.

~ ~ ~

It took them a long while to notice the Dwarfs gathering their fleets about the rings of Niðavellir. Longer than Odin would have liked.

“ _What is the reason for this,_ ” he roared at the Dwarf Ambassador. The throne gave him enough height to look down on her.

The Dwarf Ambassador held her ground. Glaring insolently at Odin, she replied, “What is your reason for attacking our allies? We had good trade running with Jotunheim, and now you have plundered their lands. We need _our_ fleet for _our_ protection, and that should be no concern of yours or Asgard’s.”

When the Ambassador tried to leave a week later, the Einherjar grabbed her. In case she was carrying information back to her king, Odin told Frigga.

The Dwarfs sent a small cadre of ships Asgard’s way, a warning that they held power too. At least, that's what Odin believed it to be.

Hela, now named Odin's executioner, followed through on her new role with the Dwarf Ambassador.

When Hela swung her glazed black blade down, its shape twisted into an overgrown axe, Frigga looked away. She couldn't, however, block out the sharp _thunk_ of sword slicing through neck. Or the heavy, muffled _thud_ of the Dwarf's head hitting the ground.

Odin said it was necessary. Hela said they needed to show their strength.

Frigga wondered if there was another way.

Fending back the giants was one thing – the beasts posed a threat to the other realms, especially if Jotunheim and Muspelheim were to unite. But neither Asgard nor Vanaheim had any qualms with the Dwarfs, at least nothing larger than trade disputes and the occasional brawl between visitors to either realm.

Word came from Niðavellir that the Dwarfs had put up a shield around their home – one that kept out not only _ships_ , but the Bifrost as well. The web of runestones, placed at select points around the rings, wove seiðr powerful enough to dispel the Bifrost’s energy.

When Asgard amassed their armada around Niðavellir rings, Frigga was there at the helm. She and Odin spun counterspells strong enough to weaken one of the runestones while the rest of the fleet held off Niðavellir's ship. As soon as the runestone's light dimmed, Hela was already in motion, launching blade after blade with a wicked grin, slicing through the floating runestone like butter.

The gap was enough. Enough for Hela to take Mjolnir and fly inside the shield.

The rest of the runestones stood no chance.

When their ships and the Bifrost landed Asgard's troops all over the skein of the rings, Frigga landed with them. For once, Frigga and her seiðkona and seiðman took the lead, covered by the Valkyrie, undoing traps and spells meant to kill any unwitting Æsir foolishly rushing ahead. The Dwarfs were clever, and pure brute strength – or even skill with weapons as advanced as Hela's – would not be enough to defeat them. Not without heavy losses on Asgard's side.

Or on the Dwarf's.

Because the more Asgard's warriors suffered, the harsher Odin would be on Niðavellir. It wouldn't even be his choice – people would call for the Dwarfs' heads if Asgard's warriors suffered not at the Dwarfs' hands, but at their _tricks_. Even if the Dwarfs managed to push Asgard back this time, the Æsir could never back down from a fight. They would return, more ruthless than before.

As she unravelled a spell meant to crush any unsuspecting Æsir between the great metal forges, Frigga thought that this way, both their realms would suffer less bloodshed.

At least, that was her hope.

( _Thunk-thud_ , the sound of the Dwarf Ambassor's head hitting the ground echoed in her ears.)  
The actual battle did not take long. The Dwarfs' warriors could not stand against Hela and Odin together, not even with all their craftsmanship and tools and traps. Not with Frigga helping to undo them all.

The Dwarfs were to surrender. All armies were to disband. Weapons were to be made for Æsir hands.

They could keep their queen, so long as she, and all after her, bowed to Asgard.  
And after the battle was over, if there were rumours that Hela had attacked some of the civilians...well, Frigga did not see much truth to them. Her Hela wouldn't. She was vigorous in battle, and certainly any warrior would taste her blade.

But she wouldn't harm those who didn't fight.

Not her Hela.

~ ~ ~

The Álfr struck first.

That was Odin's excuse – that it was necessary, that it was their duty.

Hela was the one who said it didn't matter.

Frigga was starting to believe it was the same for Odin, no matter what he claimed.

Asgard marched in their troops, like always. Odin and Hela at the front, like always, with Fenrir at the Goddess of Death's side.

Frigga, this time, asked to stay with the rear guard. It was _her_ duty, she insisted: she could defend the camps, war with the Álfr battle mages, and ride with the troops to keep up morale when Odin or Hela were elsewhere.

She didn't think either of them could _conceive_ of being tired of war.

But it would be over soon, she thought. Alfheim was the last realm left, and there would be no other wars to fight. The hope carried her on as she spoke to troops, wove protective magics, and travelled across Alfheim with her guard. It kept a barrier between herself and the realm at war.

Until she rode into the aftermath of a battle.

Except it could hardly be called a battle when it had occurred in little village, one of no strategic important. And it wasn't only the few, pitiful warriors that lay slaughtered, but the villagers, the peasants, the old and the young, the women and the men, and the children.

Most impaled by her daughter's blades.

The rest, torn apart by Fenris' fangs.

Frigga sent her guard away. “Scout ahead for any stragglers or survivors,” she told them, voice achingly calm. “Bring them to me.” If they felt the same nausea at the sight of the bodies, the same weight slowly crushing down on their chest, they didn't show it.

Once they left, Frigga sunk down in the middle of a dirt road, surrounded by the carnage. There was a little Álfr child with their mother next to the roadside, looking like they were cut down mid-run. The remains of what could have been their father, if Fenrir had left more intact, was scattered across the road. There was a merchant, pinned to their fruit stall like a bug on a pin.

A scream was building in Frigga's chest. It built and built and she couldn't let it out.

What had _happened?_ What had happened to her Hela? Where had this cruelty been hiding? Had it emerged in the wars? Had it come from Odin, flamed by his battles as they warred across the realms? Or had it come in their absences, as Hela was left to lead armies herself in her father's wars?

Had it always been there, and Frigga just refused to see it?

As soon as Frigga heard the hoof-beats approaching, she stood up, dusted herself off, and did not allow her despair to show once the captain reported no survivors.

When the Álfr sued for peace a month later, Frigga almost wept for joy. “Take it,” she told Odin, her nails digging into Odin's shoulder as he re-read the Álfr's offer.

“It might be a trick,” Hela cautioned.

It was the first time Frigga had seen Hela since the village. Frigga couldn't find the words to confront her about it.

After the war, it would easier, she told herself. They could of it speak then.

“This slaughter _cannot_ continue,” Frigga pushed back. _For everyone's sake's,_ she did not add.

She could no longer be a goddess of war. Her husband could not be the gallows god, instigator of war and reveller of battles. Her daughter could not be the goddess of death.

Asgard could no longer be a conqueror.

That night, Odin made peace with the Á lfr. Frey was placed as king to represent Odin. As with the Dwarfs, the armies were disbanded.

That night, Frigga discovered she was pregnant. She told Odin and Hela, and for an instant, thought she saw disgust, tinged with rage, on Hela's face – before Hela smiled and joked about doing all the hard work for her sibling. As Hela left their shared tent, claiming she had business elsewhere, Frigga told herself she had just been imagining things.

That night, Hela returned to Asgard, a cadre of discontents in tow. She left immediately to Muspelheim and Jotunheim, before Frigga and Odin could follow her. Quelling rebellion, reportedly.

~ ~ ~

It was several weeks' time before Frigga saw her daughter again.

By that time, she could feel the child inside her. A boy, she knew. One, perhaps, with power to rival even his father.

But not, she thought, his sister.

His sister, with fire and resolve in her eyes, with reports of worlds beyond Yggdrasil that needed to know Asgard's power when Frigga and Odin met her and Fenrir at the fields at the edge of the palace.

“No,” Odin answered. “We have the Nine. It is enough.”

“ _Coward_ ,” Hela named him. “ _Small-minded fool_. Do you think Yggdrasil is all there is to the universe?”

They shouted, as only those of Bor's blood could.

“Please, my daughter,” Frigga interjected, as the two finally took a breath. She approached Hela, hands outstretched. She had rehearsed this moment over and over in mind, and was still searching for the right words. “Don't do this. Leave this fight behind.”

For a moment, something softer flickered across Hela's face. Frigga took her chance, coming close enough to take Hela's hand. “Hasn't there been enough bloodshed? Enough war?” Her other hand, almost unconsciously, went to her belly, and Hela's eyes followed it. “Please, Hela Friggasdottir, let this be a new beginning for us.”

“Oh mother,” Hela sighed. Her eyes returned to Frigga's face, and there was a new hardness in them. “You know I was always more Odin's daughter than yours.”

Hela tore from Frigga's grasp, turned on her heel, and leapt onto Fenrir's back, galloping away before Frigga could call out another word.

~ ~ ~

It was only a few days this time.

Frigga and Odin had left Asgard, for Vanaheim. To celebrate the new child, as was custom.

Hela must have timed it.

They returned to Asgard as soon as they heard the news. Considering there had been no survivors in the palace, it had taken a few hours.

Hela hadn't stopped at the guards. No, she also went for the servants, the nobles, the merchants, anyone unlucky enough to have set foot inside the palace.

Even the children who had been playing around the fountain, cooling off during the warm fall day.

Where had Frigga gone wrong? Where had she failed?

Was it with the Dwarf Ambassador? The lady had had such fierce spirit that Frigga had admired from a distance, and she couldn't even remember the Dwarf’s name now.

Or had it started at the beginning, with Surtur and Musplheim, when they believed they were only protecting Yggdrasil?

Odin found Frigga sitting on the floor of their rooms, her skirts askew, one edge soaking in a pool of blood. It was from one of her handmaidens. Two were on the floor with her, Fulla with a sword through the chest, Gna with a dagger in her neck.

“Don't kill her,” she whispered, staring at Fulla. Three days ago, she had been joking with the handmaiden about the new babe, if he would be as fussy an eater as her daughter. “Please, _don't kill her.”_ Tears ran down her cheeks. She had long stopped trying to dry them off.

“Banishment.” Odin's voice was dry, rasping. “She will be trapped on one of the outer realms, alone. Not even you will be able to reach her there.”

Frigga understood. She understood that it was better than the other alternative.

Still, her body shook, her tears coming out in gasps, and she couldn't tell for whom she cried more – Asgard, her daughter, or herself.

Odin sat down beside her, the red of his cape mixing with the red of the blood that soaked the floor, that soaked the whole palace. He held onto her with a desperation she felt boiling up inside her, his head nestled on her shoulder. She wanted to clutch him back, but she couldn't move, hands frozen, eyes locked on the bodies and the blood that she knew would stain the floor long after the they had been removed.

~ ~ ~

It only took two months before Hela broke free. Two months of Frigga trying and failing to break past Odin's defences, until it didn't matter anymore.

_“Please,”_ Frigga begged. _“Please._ Find another way.”

“I've sent the Valkyrie after her.” Odin's voice was colder this time. Harder. “They will do what is necessary.”

The sound that tore from her throat was more animal than anything else. She locked herself away, spent days scrying trying to find Hela – if she could just _speak_ with her, tell her she was still loved, warn her of her father's wrath, plead with her to _stop–_

She shouldn't have worried, though.

Her daughter slaughtered the Valkyrie as easily as she did the servants in the palace.

Their scouts reported the massacre of warriors and pegasi. They couldn't even find the body of one of the Valkyrie, Brunnhilde. Frigga didn't want to know what Hela had done with her.

When Odin rode out to confront Hela himself, Frigga met him on the bridge.

“I will go with you,” she insisted.

“You cannot. You cannot take the risk.”

Doubt suffused her heart for an instance, but she brushed it aside. “She won't kill me.”

“Perhaps not, but she _will_ kill him.” Odin nodded at her belly.

Frigga's hand fluttered down to her stomach, where her son was growing strong and steady.

She thought to protest, but the words dies before they left her throat.

Frigga hadn't imagined that look back on Alfheim. And she doubted it was mere coincidence Hela attacked when they were celebrating her new sibling.

Hela _would_ kill her unborn brother.

Frigga had seen her daughter cut the wings off a fly from a hundred meters out. She could end the babe’s life with a well-placed dagger that wouldn't inconvenience Frigga for longer than a day or two. Likely with as little guilt as dismembering a fly.

Frigga stepped back. She realized her hand was clutched over her stomach, and she dropped it.

“Just don't kill her,” she pleaded. “Whatever you do, please don't kill her. Don't kill our daughter.”

“I will do my duty to the realms,” Odin said. Like that excuse meant anything anymore.

~ ~ ~

Fenrir was captured first, then Hela's remaining followers.

And finally Hela herself.

It was a prison of sorts, Odin told her. One tied to Odin's life, to hold Hela until he ascended to Valhalla. Inescapable, while Odin still lived.

And as Frigga fell into despair, she didn't understand how Odin could tell her that she would just _forget_. As if she could ever forget her child, as twisted as she had become.

She didn't realize Odin would _make_ them _all_ forget.

~ ~ ~

Odin worked his magic on the realms.

The wars, the conquest…

Hela...

It faded from all their minds, from Musphelheim to Asgard, from the peasantry to the royalty. First the emotions attached, as if it had happened at a distance, or to someone else. Then the details. Finally, from the texts, records, and histories – Asgard's sordid past wiped clean.

It dwindled into a faint dream – or nightmare.

But even as the memories faded, Frigga knew there were some things that she would never let herself forget: the smell of blood staining the earth, the sight of bodies skewered and torn.

Her daughter.

Even as Odin's magic wormed its way into her skull, Frigga own seiðr struggled against it, holding enough of her daughter out of the spell's reach.

Hela's smile when perfected a new blade. The dark tumble of her hair as she fought on the training grounds.

The glee in her eyes when she cut down giants and Dwarfs alike.

~ ~ ~

When Thor was born, Frigga could feel the power running through his veins. Odin's blood, powering the thunder beneath his skin.

She held him close to her breast, and remembered another babe, eons ago. They were memories that had been clear as day only months ago, but _now_ –

Now they slipped through her fingers even as she tugged and grabbed hold, only catching a few here and there. Curious eyes. Dark hair. A small, warm body in her arms, and _love_ –

Then Thor squirmed, his soft blonde hair plastered to head, his little blue eyes looking up at her in wonder, and Frigga felt such _love_ surge through her–

Love...hadn't she just been thinking about love?

Thor squirmed again, waving his fists in the air and letting out little cries, and Frigga decided that whatever it was, she could figure it out later. He son needed her attention now.

~ ~ ~

Some days she forgot she ever had a daughter. Some days, Thor was an only child.

Other days, she remembered, and _hated_ Odin in ways she hadn't known possible. Other days, she felt the urge to take Thor and _run_.

And other days still, she remembered blood staining the floor, blood soaking her skirts, bodies pinned like ants, and just felt weary.

~ ~ ~

When Loki was brought to her, Frigga was delighted by the magic she could feel in the child, ready for her to help him shape. Odin’s child _(children)_ shared his power, but she had been given one to share hers.

It took her a month to notice. It took a month until it hit her, as she sat at her loom weaving seiðr into wool and holding Loki in her arms – a month to _really_ see the little black fuzz of hair, the green of Loki's eyes, the way she held him in the crook of her arm, even the angle of light creeping in through the window and stillness of the midwinter day. It took her back over 1500 years to another day like this, to another child with a dark fuzz of hair in her arms, a child with curious green eyes roaming across her spinning wheel and up to Frigga's face in fascination.

And Frigga knew whom Loki had been sculpted to resemble. Whom Odin had been thinking of when he had cast his spell on the babe.

She wanted to scream when she saw it, and she wasn't sure why.

It _hurt_.

By the Norns, it hurt.

She wondered if Odin saw her newest son as a replacement. A do-over.

She wondered if he remembered Hela better, if he knew whether the exact shade of green in Loki's eyes matched her daughter's.

~ ~ ~

Hela was a ghost. There one day, watching over Frigga's shoulder as she tended to her sons. Vanished the next, barely even an echo in Frigga's soul as she helped Odin rule their realm.

~ ~ ~

Frigga sang songs to her boys when they were little, wove stories for them when they were older.

She praised them when they did well, scolded them they when got into mischief.

And she wondered how much of this she had done exactly the same before.

How could she avoid repeating her mistakes if she couldn't remember making them?

~ ~ ~

Under Frigga's watchful eye, her boys chased each other around her garden, tackling shrubs like they had offended them and attacked the trees as if they were trolls.

Under Frigga's careful guidance, Loki learned how to fan the seiðr inside him, how to harness his power into summoning blades and knives, how to fight with those knives and short swords

Thor felt he had little to learn from her fighting style – in that area, he undoubtedly favoured Odin's tutelage over hers – yet he listened attentively at knee to her stories and lessons, before begging off to practice his sword-work with Odin and the training instructors. As he grew, Frigga's lessons fell by the wayside altogether in favour of the training grounds, even the occasional spar with Odin when he had the time – an event that all the denizens of Asgard came to watch.

And as Frigga watched them grow, watched them play, watched them train, every now and again there would be a prickle on the back of her neck, a cold feeling in her stomach.

There was something missing.

There was some _one_ missing.

It would spike in her at times, the knowledge that there should have been a third, the eldest, to lead her little brothers through their first adventures and first battles – to teach Thor to control the power they shared with their father, to teach Loki how to control the weft of seiðr so carefully.

And yet every time Frigga had that thought, a hazy memory dredged itself up through Odin's spell: a flash of disgust and rage on Hela's face when Frigga told her of the pregnancy; or the nausea of cold fear when Frigga realized Hela might have killed Thor in Frigga's belly if she had the chance.

Sometimes the relief that Hela never set foot near her brothers won out inside her. Sometimes the longing for all her children to have known each other won out instead.

At least until Frigga forgot the source of the aching inside her once again.

~ ~ ~

Thor grew to be bright and playful, a terror on the battlefield, taking after his father in his strength.

Yet as much as Frigga could tell he was a warrior-born, she did not see the same bloodlust in him as in Hela.

She hoped she did not see the same bloodlust in him.

~ ~ ~

Loki was quiet and bookish, too mischievous by far, taking after his father in his skill with words, even if that mischief and those words occasionally turned cruel.

Yet as callous as Loki could be, Frigga did not see the same viciousness in him as in Hela.

She hoped she did not see the same viciousness in him.

~ ~ ~

Both her sons could be arrogant, but Frigga had long ago discovered that was the natural mien of the Æsir.

~ ~ ~

It was Odin's idea that they keep the truth from Loki when they brought him to Asgard. Frigga protested, but not as hard as she could have. When Loki came of age and Odin still refused to tell him, Frigga argued, but not as much as she should have.

Shame held her tongue.

It burned in her stomach, and rotted there. It wasn't just that she knew Loki looked up to her as perfect, infallible, more than he did Thor or Odin. It wasn't just that she didn't want to see the accusation in his eyes once he knew she had lied to him.

It was also knowing she had fought against his people in wars she couldn't remember.

When Odin worked his spell, she hadn't even _tried_ to keep memories of the Jotun wars. They hadn't felt important. The _slaughtered Jotnar_ hadn't felt important.

How many of Loki's kinsmen had she slain?

How much Jotun blood stained her hands?

~ ~ ~

When Odin banished Thor and told her of Thor's words in the Bifrost, Frigga knew there was fear beneath his anger. There was fear beneath hers as well.

She didn't realize Thor had such a thirst for war. For conquest. For blood. Not her Thor.

But she would not have her son cast out forever, lost and forgotten. She would have him brought home.

She did not expect her wish to be realized in mere days.

Nor another child lost to her so soon.

~ ~ ~

She did not expect Loki to return a conqueror, either.

~ ~ ~

Odin was pondering what to do with Loki when Thor brought him back to Asgard.

All it took was one word from his mouth about locking her son away.

The wine glass that had been in her hand shattered against the wall, shards bouncing across the room from the force of Frigga's throw _. “If you take another child from me, I swear I'll -”_ Frigga half-cried, half-snarled. There was a sob in her throat and fury in her clawed hands, instinctively reaching for a weapon.

She hadn't known she still felt such rage for what he did. What they both did.

Odin stared at her, his eye wide in surprise, but that was all. He was calm. He was always _so damned calm_ when it came to deciding the fates of their children. Fates that he often decided without her.

“No,” Odin said. “Not that. Not again.”

He went back to his rooms to decide on a proper punishment. Alone.

She promised herself she would not allow Odin to do to Loki what he had done to their daughter. Loki would not be buried, written off, lost to memory.

She would not lose another child. She would have him return to them, one day.

~ ~ ~

In the end, she did not think it was her words that swayed Odin. It was more likely that Odin spared Loki such a fate because Loki was not of their blood.

Loki did not have the power, the potential, the same lust for war that ran through Buri's veins, through Bor's, through Odin's, through Hela's, and at one time through Thor's. If it was in Loki, it was learned.

And Frigga would make sure he would unlearn it. As Thor had.

She just needed _time._

And perhaps, if she saved Loki, if she convinced _Odin_ that Loki could be saved....

Then she could do the same for Hela.

She would have all her children returned to her. Their family whole, at last.

In time.

In time.


	2. You Look so Worn, so Thin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asgard has made the rest of the realms kneel, and now Odin and his daughter have come for Vanaheim. Frigga has a duty to her people, even if that duty means marrying into the family that caused so much strife.

No one knew the identity of Princess Hela's mother, save for the Allfather himself. Some rumoured the mother was a witch from Jotunheim, others that she was a giant of Midgard. Some claimed there was no mother but that Odin shaped his daughter from the World Tree, like he had the humans Askr and Embla, and breathed his life into her.

No matter who Princess Hela's mother was, she wasn't nearly as interesting as the princess herself. The stories Frigga heard of Princess Hela grew from the usual run of the mill gossip when the Princess was a child, to admiring rumbles of her power as the Princess developed into a young woman.

And finally, after the first wars, to whispers braved only in empty corridors, always tinged with an edge of fear.

~ ~ ~

When Asgard began their war with the Eldjotnar, Father and Mother sent their troops to reinforce their armies. Asgard and Vanaheim were allies, after all, and the giants were monstrosities. If Asgard dealt with them, then the rest of the realms would sleep easier at night. When there were rumours that Odin may have slain Surtur himself, Vanaheim rejoiced. When Jotunheim was crushed beneath Asgard's heel, there was laughter and cheer from the city markets to the countryside, and the royal family threw a feast to celebrate.

They stayed out of the conflict with the Dwarves. If there was disapproval, it was muttered behind closed doors.

They grew concerned once Asgard's eye turned to Alfheim.

While Asgard warred with Alfheim, Vanaheim began to prepare. Just in case, Father would tell her and Gunnhilde.

“But I'm sure there will be nothing to worry about. Asgard and Vanaheim are sister realms, kin to each other. Like you two.” He would smile and squeeze their shoulders, before disappearing into a meeting with Mother and their advisers.

Frigga and Gunnhilde would share a glace, and both knew that excuse was as flimsy as Asgard's reason for attacking Alfheim. The two of them would then attend to their own personal battalions, training their sword-work and spellwork until Frigga felt the knot of worry in her stomach ease. Or else until she grew too exhausted to feel it.

~ ~ ~

She first saw King Odin and Princess Hela on the battlefield.

Asgard had come for Vanaheim.

Frigga stood at her father's right side, with her sister on Father's left. Mother held the garrison inside the palace, where they had taken in the people living around the palace's lands.

Frigga's armour felt heavy, ill-fitting, in a way it never had on the training grounds. Her palms were sweating against her swords, her fingers nervously running along the runes carved along its hilt and in her armour.

Odin and his daughter lead Asgard's charge, the dark fur of the wolf Fenrir behind them, shadowing them.

The sight sent electric terror dancing down her spine.

Vanaheim had its warriors, yes, and its share of battles and heroes. But Asgard was a _realm_ of warriors.

Vanaheim, at least, still had one advantage. While Asgard saw magic as a fanciful trinket, a bauble and a tool, Vanaheim wove seiðr like Asgard hammered gold.

As Asgard's armies rushed at the Vanir, Frigga's people let their seiðr run wild. Illusions shimmered into existence to distract the eyes, and the earth itself turned against the Æsir as thorns and vines sprouted from the ground to entangle limbs.

Father went for Princess Hela, Gunnhilde for the wolf. Father's shadow clones ducked and weaved around Hela. Gunnhilde's white ribbons of seiðr snaked around Fenrir and bound him tight.

Frigga was left with King Odin.

As the Allfather crossed the field, cutting down Vanir soldiers with Gungnir as if swatting flies, Frigga delicately twined threads of seiðr across him, working a spell she had been researching and perfecting since Asgard finished its war with the Dwarfs.

And it _worked_.

She saw when it hit him. He stopped, his eyes glazed over, neither seeing nor hearing the battle around him. He was lost in time and space, Frigga's seiðr and will overpowering his own, if only for the moment.

Frigga was still triumphantly holding the spell in place when the Goddess of Death impaled her father.

Somewhere across the battlefield, Frigga could hear her sister screaming, visceral with rage and pain. The sound echoed in Frigga's heart. She wasn't sure if any noise came out of her mouth, or if the roar she heard in her ears was only the roar of battle.

She dropped the spell ensnaring the Allfather, and turned her wrath against his daughter. She whispered spells to activate the runes in her swords and armour and imbue them with the strength of Vanaheim, sent illusions spinning and stabbing along with her own real blade, drew roots and thorns out of the earth to trap Asgard's princess.

Frigga must have been a millennium Hela's senior.

The Goddess of Death knocked her into the mud like she was a child.

Frigga looked up at the slash of a grin beneath a tangle of horns, the gleeful eyes, and the shadow-black blade poised above her heart.

King Odin stopped the blow that would have killed her.

He froze, locking eyes with Frigga, and she could see that he knew who she was, and that she was the one who had cast the spell to imprison him.

It gave her enough time to leave her image in place as, invisible, she rolled out of the mud, away from the Allfather and his daughter.

It gave her enough time grab her father's limp body and loop him – no, _it_ now, not _him_ anymore, just _it_ – over her shoulders.

It gave her enough time to roll fog over the battlefield, for the rest of the Vanir to take their cue and join in, disappearing into the greyness as the Æsir shouted about filthy cowards and honourless knaves.

All except for the King of Asgard, who stood by his daughter’s side, his cold eyes searching the fog, watching.

~ ~ ~

Magic kept them afloat for a time. Villages, hold-fasts, and castles would disappear before the Æsir's eyes, reappearing in the distance, or in several places at once. Mother, with a ferocity Frigga had never seen in her, conducted the witches, mages, and anyone with an ounce of seiðr. She barely allowed herself any time to mourn.

Frigga spent most of her time away from the palace, her and Gunnhilde leading the offence across the realm, visiting every village, encampment, and castle still standing to raise moral. More than once, Frigga wished they had asked the Dwarfs how they kept the Bifrost from accessing Niðavellir, because the Æsir could _be_ anywhere, _land_ anywhere. And _always_ Frigga felt too late, no matter how much she tried to scry or follow her Mother's teachings to see beyond the present.

She fought with everything she had, with every battle strategy and defensive tactic she knew, with seiðr and swords. She won nearly every battle she lead, and when she had to retreat, her losses were rarely heavy.

It wasn't enough.

It wasn't enough because none of her triumphs were against Asgard's king or princess. She never met the two of them on the battlefield again.

She only witnessed their aftermath.

Except in this case it could hardly be called a battlefield when it had occurred in a little village, one of no strategic important. And it wasn't only the few, pitiful warriors and witches that lay slaughtered, but the villagers, the farmers, the old and the young, the women and the men, and the children. Most impaled by Hela's shadow-dark blades.

The rest, torn apart by Fenrir' fangs.

Frigga sent her guards to search the surrounding fields. “Scout for any survivors,” she told them, voice achingly calm. “Keep them safe and bring them to me.” If they thought it odd that their princess sent away the guard that was supposed to keep her safe, they didn't show it.

Maybe they all felt the same nausea at the sight of the bodies, the same weight slowly crushing down on their chest. Maybe they all wanted to leave the sights and smells behind.

Maybe they understood the way she had to sink to the blood-soaked ground, surrounded by the carnage, as soon as they left.

There was a little boy with what could have been his mother, looking like they were cut down mid run. The remains of what might have been their father, if Fenrir had left more intact, was scattered across the village centre. There was an old woman, pinned to wall of a yurt like a bug on a pin.

A scream was building in Frigga's chest. It built and built and she couldn't let it out.

What came out instead were dry, heaving sobs, and a string of vomit when she leaned over and retched onto the dirt.

On all fours, shaking, the taste of vomit on her lips, Frigga knew they were going to lose.

They were going to lose, and there was nothing Frigga, Gunnhilde, or Mother could do about it.

Had it been this way since the wars with the giants? Had everyone turned a blind eye? Or did Asgard revel in this sort of cruelty? Were they all as monstrous as Asgard's princess?

As soon as Frigga heard the hoof-beats approaching, she stood up, cleaned herself and the vomit with a brush of seiðr , and didn't let her knees give out once the captain reported no survivors.

When Odin called for a parlay a month later, it was more of a relief than it should have been.

~ ~ ~

“I have grown weary of this war. I do not want to see any more of my people lost, nor more of your own.”

“You started this war, _Borson_ ,” Mother snarled. “And we will fight to the last Vanir if necessary. You will not claim Vanaheim as your own.”

“I know that you will fight to last of your people. And it _would_ be the last. Even if your eldest can bring me down,” and Odin dipped his head to Frigga, a sign of respect, before he set his icy eyes on Mother again, “...Can you bring down my daughter?”

At that, Mother froze.

No, Frigga knew, they could not.

The Goddess of Death could not be stopped.

“What if I called for more than a simple truce between our realms?” Odin asked. “What if we were to be allies again? What if you didn't have to bow?”

Mother's eyes were suspicious.

But Frigga could see her mother's veneer of strength slipping, as it did when they were alone, revealing a glimpse of the exhausted desperation beneath.

And hope

Aching, terrible hope.

Or perhaps Frigga was simply projecting.

Frigga and Gunnhilde both leaned forward and, with Mother, they listened to the Allfather's offer.

After he finished speaking, there was a thundering quiet, a rush in Frigga's ears that sounded a lot like the rush of battle.

Then Gunnhilde swore and snarled at Odin to leave before she killed him. Mother sat in stony silence, her lips thinned and eyes trained on the distance.

Frigga learned long ago that as a princess, she did not belong only to herself, but to her people. Her realm.

She met Odin's cold, pale blue eyes. “I will accept your proposal, Allfather,” she told the King of Asgard, and now her betrothed.

~ ~ ~

He disbanded their army, of course. He did that to all the realms he conquered. If their warriors wished to be properly trained, it had to be done on Asgard – or so they were informed.

Frigga was married on a bright summer day, with two realms in attendance to celebrate the peace. Mother was there as a symbol – to hand Frigga over into Asgard's protection – and as support, to whisper in Frigga's ear as she walked onto the dais, “Be brave, dear one. Be strong, and remember Vanaheim.” Gunnhilde sat stoically in the middle of the Vanaheim party, glaring at any Æsir who dared come her way.

To Frigga's surprise, Princess Hela attended as well. She was a black gash in a crowd of colours, death at a wedding. When Frigga at last took Odin's hand in marriage, Frigga looked out over the crowd, searching for her mother's eye. Instead, she caught Hela's.

The Goddess of Death met Frigga's eyes with a hatred that burned.

Frigga glanced away, but not before she saw Hela's hatred turned on Odin too.

Hela disappeared after the ceremony. To Muspelheim, Odin told her, to quell stirrings of rebellion.

And Frigga found herself queen of a realm she only knew through her lessons and books.

Alone.

Her mother and sister returned to Vanaheim, to rule and heal their realm as best they could. There were a couple handmaidens Frigga kept, but most were replaced with Æsir women. Everyone else was a stranger, even her husband.

Frigga did not love Odin. She couldn't, not when he led Asgard's armies into her home, even if he understood and respected her boundaries. Theirs was a marriage of duty, a way for Frigga to save her realm and for Asgard to save face. Frigga did not love Asgard. She couldn't, not when its people spent so much time warring against her own. It was cold and confining, flora and greenery carefully cordoned-off or controlled – much the same with the way Asgard treated their seiðr _._

And when Frigga first felt life stir in her belly, a month after the marriage, she did not know if she could love her child. It was not only _whom_ she had the child with; it was that she never expected she would bear children so _soon_ _._ She was _too young_ _,_ she thought with faint panic when she first sensed the fledging life. She was not ready for the burden of both a child and a queenship of this new, cold realm.

Still, she told Odin of the child, and together they made the announcement to Asgard. A boy, she knew. One, perhaps, with power to rival even his father.

But not, she worried, his sister.

His sister, who returned to Asgard a week after the announcement with reports of worlds beyond Yggdrasil that needed to know Asgard's power. Odin rode out to meet her at the fields at the edge of the palace, rather than in its confines.

He went alone. It took a few minutes more for Frigga to decide to go as well.

Odin believed he was protecting her by keeping the two of them separate. And yes, Hela had killed Frigga's father. But Odin had led his armies into Vanaheim and Frigga now shared his bed. If they were to be family, Frigga would rather Hela not murder her in her sleep. Better to make peace now. Or at least get a decent start on it.

When she rode down to meet them, they were shouting as only those of Bor's blood could, Fenrir resting his great body behind Hela.

“...now that you have fallen into Vanaheim's arms, you have _grown soft?_ ”

“That is _enough_ , Hela! It is time you fell in line.”

Hela caught sight of Frigga as she dismounted, and a sword flowed into her hand. “ _Why?_ So I can be thrown aside? So you can replace me and my claim with your new _welp_?” she growled, and pointed her sword at Frigga's stomach.

Frigga's own sword was in her hand before she could think.

“ _You_ ,” she snarled, all thoughts of reconciliation vanished, “will not raise your sword against _me_ , or _my child_ , _again_.” _My child_. Even in the terror of the moment, the words felt wrong in her mouth.

Hela's bared teeth contorted into a grin, her eyes lighting up at the sight of the sword. Frigga's heart beat with white-hot fear, but Hela turned both her sword and smile back onto Odin. “Well, Father? Will you choose me and Asgard's glory? Or cowardice and your new heir?”

“I choose _peace_ , Hela,” Odin barked. _“And you will too.”_

The grin slipped from Hela's face.

Frigga almost felt a flash of sympathy at her shock.

Then Hela spat, “We're too much alike for that to last, Allfather,” and the moment was over. Hela turned on her heel and leapt onto Fenrir's back, galloping away before Odin could finish shouting her name.

Frigga let her sword vanish and all but collapsed with relief.

~ ~ ~

It was only a few days this time.

Frigga and Odin had left Asgard, for Vanaheim. To celebrate the new child, as was custom.

Hela must have timed it.

They returned to Asgard as soon as they heard the news. Considering there had been no survivors in the palace, it had taken a few hours.

Frigga wandered the halls of the blood-spattered palace, so much like the villages and castles of Vanaheim, right down to the black swords sticking out like skewers in a field of bodies.

Hela hadn't stopped at the guards. No, she also went for the servants, the nobles, the merchants, anyone unlucky enough to have set foot inside the palace.

Even the children who had been playing around the fountain, cooling off during the warm fall day.

Odin found Frigga sitting on the floor of their rooms, her skirts askew, one edge soaking in a pool of blood. It was from one of her handmaidens. Two of them were on the floor with her, Fulla with a sword through the chest, Gna with a dagger in her neck. The rest had accompanied her to Vanaheim. If Frigga had known the trip would spare them, she would have taken them all.

_“Why is she doing this?”_ she whispered, staring at Fulla. Three days ago, Frigga had asked the handmaiden – a mother of three – if it was Asgard's custom to have a milk maid or if feeding was the mother's duty. And if it hurt when the babe gave suck. Frigga thought she'd started to make some _friends_ in Fulla and Gna. “These are _her_ people, _why is she doing this?”_ Tears ran down her cheeks. She had long stopped trying to dry them off.

Frigga had thought it was _over_. She had thought she was _safe_.

“She is angry,” Odin said, his voice rough, strained. “She is...she thinks Asgard has shirked its duty.”

Odin sat down on the floor beside her, the red of his cape mixing with the red of the blood that soaked the floor, that soaked the whole palace. His hand grasped at hers, tight, and she wasn't sure if it was for her or for himself.

“I'm sorry,” he said, and Frigga was startled enough to look at him. She never thought she would hear those words from his mouth, though he was staring at the handmaidens, not her. “I never believed she would...never expected this of her...” Odin trailed off, and closed his eyes. “She will be banished to one of the outer realms, alone. Indefinitely.”

Frigga found herself relieved, and found guilt in that relief. Hela was technically her daughter now, her family. She knew she should be troubled that Odin could decide to lock away his daughter, his second-in-command, when she'd been conducting the same slaughter during the wars and he hadn't lifted a finger then.

But sitting in a palace of the dead, blood drenching her shoes and clothes and hands, she wasn't.

~ ~ ~

It only took two months for Hela to break free. Two months of Frigga dreaming of battle, of a tangle of black horns and a grin above her, of a sword thrust through her father's body.

When Frigga asked Odin what he planned to do, Odin only said, “I've sent the Valkyrie after her.”

To kill her, Odin meant.

This time, his voice was colder. Harder.

This time, despite the guilty relief, Frigga could feel the unease that had eluded her before.

She knew why _she_ would want Hela dead. She knew why her mother, or Gunnhilde, or any Vanir would want Hela dead.

But she did not understand how _Odin_ could allow her death.

Frigga expected banishment again, or imprisonment, not the finality of death. Not for his daughter.

She did not understand how _any_ father could resort to killing his child.

In the end, though, Frigga shouldn't have worried.

Hela slaughtered the Valkyrie as easily as the servants in the palace. They couldn't even find the body of one of the Valkyrie. Frigga remembered her, a woman a few hundred years her junior, who had given her a saucy wink as she and the other Valkyrie escorted Frigga to the Bifrost for the wedding. Frigga had blushed furiously, unsure why.

Frigga didn't want to know what Hela had done to the woman.

And when Odin donned his armour to confront Hela himself, Frigga couldn't help but wonder if Odin expected the massacre of the Valkyrie.

Before Odin rode off to the Bifrost, he asked Frigga to meet him. “I'm placing you under protection,” he told her, nodding at the warriors he had gathered, a few seiðkona among them. “Only until I return.”

Frigga thought to protest, that she didn't _need_ protecting, that she had brought _him_ down in battle by herself...

Until her sense caught up with her pride. And Frigga knew, guards or not, the only hope she had of surviving Hela was if Hela never chose to go after her in the first place.

Even so, she could not find it in herself to wish for a man to murder his daughter.

She did not know what she wished for, only that this nightmare would end.

All she replied with was, “Come home safe. Asgard and our son will need you.” She didn't tell him _she_ would need him.

She wasn't sure she ever would.

Odin nodded, and if he heard what she left unsaid, he didn't acknowledge it.

Frigga watched her husband ride out, and wondered what she would do if he never came back.

Fight to the last breath, she supposed. And hope the realms survived Hela's wrath.

~ ~ ~

Fenrir was captured first, then Hela's remaining followers.

And finally Hela herself.

It was a prison of sorts, Odin told her. One tied to Odin's life, to hold Hela until he ascended to Valhalla. Inescapable, while Odin still lived.

“You'll be safe,” he told her. “You, our son, and the realms.”

And as Frigga was caught between hating herself for _joy_ she felt at the news, and exhaustion at the thought of once again waiting for Hela to escape the inescapable, she didn't understand when Odin claimed that she would just _forget_. As if she could forget the fear, the carnage, the war.

She didn't realize he would _make_ them _all_ forget.

~ ~ ~

Odin worked his magic on the realms.

The death, the conquest…

Hela...

It faded from all their minds, from Musphelheim to Asgard, from the peasants to the royalty. First the emotions attached, as if it had happened at a distance, or to someone else. Then the details. Finally, from the texts, records, and histories – Asgard's sordid past wiped clean.

It dwindled into a dream – a faint nightmare.

By the time Frigga recognized what was happening, her memories had already began dissolving, crumbling away. What was gone couldn't be brought back.

But the rest, she fought tooth and nail to keep. As her seiðr struggled against Odin's, she knew there were some memories she could never let herself forget: the smell of blood staining the earth, the sight of bodies skewered and torn.

Her father and sister beside her on the battlefield.

The weight of her father's limp, still-warm body on her shoulders.

The Allfather, leading Asgard's charge.

And his daughter, her crown of horns like a tear in the fabric of the sky, smiling.

Even as Odin's magic wormed its way into her skull, Frigga refused to forget Odin's daughter.

~ ~ ~

When Thor was born, Frigga could feel the power running through his veins. Odin's blood, powering the thunder beneath his skin.

Holding the babe in her arms, his soft blonde hair plastered to head, his blue eyes staring up at her in wonder, Frigga felt such _love_ surge through her. Even though he was not fully hers, even though he was Odin's son and heir first and foremost, he was hers enough.

The thought flashed through her mind that this child, her son, would be raised _right_. She would raise him better than Odin ever could, wouldn't let him be tainted by–

Little Thor squirmed, let out soft cries and waving his fists in the air, and Frigga couldn't remember why she had that thought in the first place.

~ ~ ~

Some days, she forgot Vanaheim had ever been conquered. Some days, Thor was an only child.

Other days, she remembered, and _hated_ Odin in ways she hadn't even while he had been leading an army against her realm.

And other days still, she remembered the chaos of battle, Æsir and Vanir bodies around her, and felt too weary for rage.

~ ~ ~

When Loki was brought to her, she was delighted by the magic she could feel in the child, ready for her to help him shape. Thor already shared Odin's power, but this one could share Frigga's. If Thor must be Odin's, then Loki could be hers.

It took her months to notice. It took months until it hit her, as she sat at her loom weaving seiðr into wool and holding Loki in her arms – months to _really_ see the little black fuzz of hair, the green of his eyes.

Frigga had rarely seen Hela in person. But she knew whom Loki had been sculpted to resemble. Whom Odin had been thinking of when he had cast his spell on the babe.

She wondered if Odin saw their newest child as a replacement. A do-over, where he had failed before.

Filling in for the child he had lost.

She wanted to scream, and she wasn't sure why. She hurt, and didn't know for whom – for the babe in her arms, for Odin, for herself, or for Hela.

But her Loki wouldn't be Hela. She would raise him _right_.

~ ~ ~

Hela was a ghost. There one day, watching over Frigga's shoulder as she tended to her sons. Vanished the next, barely even an echo in Frigga's soul as she helped Odin rule their realm.

~ ~ ~

Frigga sang songs to her boys when they were little, wove stories for them when they were older.

She praised them when they did well, scolded them they when got into mischief.

And she wondered if it made a difference.

Odin had been on his own with Hela. She remembered that much. And she quickly discovered that Odin was more a king than a father.

Maybe Frigga alone could be enough.

~ ~ ~

Under Frigga's watchful eye, her boys chased each other around her garden, tackled shrubs like they had offended them, attacked the trees as if they were trolls, and launched at each other to play-fight in the dirt. Laughing, Frigga brushed the mud off them with a touch of seiðr, thinking back to when she and her sister got into scuffles. Though they used more magic than fists, and certainly did not get quite as dirty, because sisters more often fought dirty _metaphorically_ –

And for a second, Frigga wondered what Hela would be like as a sister to her boys.

If she would be spiteful, full of hatred at her brothers' very existence. If she would be overbearing and annoying, the way Frigga could be with Gunnhilde in their youth. If she would find in them a partner on the battlefield and confidante in her woes, as Frigga and Gunnhilde found in each other.

If she would love her brothers the way Frigga loved them.

She wondered, right up until a memory flashed through her mind. Hela in standing in a field, sword pointed at Frigga stomach, her face twisted in a snarl, and the cold rush of fear flooding Frigga's heart and tongue and hands.

A shiver crawled down Frigga's spine and settled in the stomach.

No, Frigga decided as she tried to smile again for Thor and Loki's confused little faces, it was for the best they had never known one another.

~ ~ ~

She never asked after Hela's mother.

At first, she didn't have the courage. And by the time she did, by the time she grown more at ease around her husband, she never felt right speaking of it. Centuries passed, and love had slowly crept in, like her love for Asgard. By that time, Frigga decided she didn't want to know.

She never asked Odin if he still thought of Hela, either. If he cared for the child he had locked away.

If he did, he never revealed it to her.

~ ~ ~

Thor grew up bright and playful, a terror on the battlefield, taking after his father in his strength. Loki grew up quiet and bookish, too mischievous by far, taking after his father in his skill with words.

Both could be arrogant, but Frigga had soon discovered that was the natural mien of the Æsir.

~ ~ ~

She enjoyed watching Thor on the training grounds as he grew into a natural-born warrior, knocking opponents into the dirt with ease and a smile.

Once, she saw him and another boy bantering before a spar – at least, it looked like bantering to her, at that distance. But in the middle of the round, Thor knocked the boy down with a blow to the chest before holding his training sword at the boy's neck, a edge to his grin that she had never seen before.

And Frigga felt a phantom pain in her chest, the wind knocked out of her as she lay on her back in the mud, a grin like a slash of white above her. Fear shot through her, hammering in her chest, and she wanted to shout at the boy to move, _move_ –

Then Thor laughed and pulled his opponent to his feet, back to his natural brightness.

Frigga felt foolish. The same bloodlust that had plagued Hela wasn't in her boys.

Her Thor wouldn't be Hela.

~ ~ ~

Sometimes she would watch her boys play with their friends, sitting on one of the balconies as the group passed below in a field or courtyard. Thor would always be in the midst of the group, while Loki went from gamely tagging along when younger to pushing himself to his brother's side when older.

Once, as she absentmindedly watched the five of them traipsing through a courtyard, laughter and chatter drifting towards her, Fandral said something and pushed Loki a little bit too hard. The push sent Loki stumbling back.

Loki _looked_ at Fandral, and Frigga remembered that look, remembered Odin's hand in hers as she searched the wedding guests for her mother only to meet venomous green eyes, staring at her with a hatred that _burned_. The same thrill of fear carved through Frigga, along with the urge to tell Fandral to run, to escape–

Then the look passed, and Loki only frowned before giving Fandral a light shove of his own.

Frigga felt ridiculous. Her boys could never be as vicious as Hela.

Her Loki wouldn't be Hela.

~ ~ ~

It had been Odin's idea that they keep Loki's heritage from him. _One more secret in the family,_ she had almost snapped, but agreed. Much too easily.

When Loki came of age and Odin still refused to tell him, Frigga had argued, _if not now, then when?_ But in the end, she agreed. Far too quickly.

Part of it was that she knew how it felt to be an outsider, and _she_ was only of Vanaheim, a bride and queen made for the price of peace. She didn't want to put the burden of being a Jotun on her son, a child cast aside, stolen from a fallen people in the hopes of peace.

Part of it was that she knew Loki looked up to her as perfect, infallible, more than he did Thor or Odin. She didn't want to see the accusation in his eyes once he knew she had lied to him.

But more than anything, it was the shame.

It was hazy memories of rejoicing as much as any Vanir when Jotunheim was crushed beneath Asgard's foot. It was telling her father, _the more of those monsters dead, the better_. It was knowing that if Asgard had asked for Vanaheim's aid back then, Frigga would have gladly been on the front lines without a second's thought.

~ ~ ~

When Odin banished Thor and told her of Thor's words in the Bifrost, Frigga knew there was fear beneath his anger. There was fear beneath hers as well.

Was it happening all over again? Had she missed Thor's thirst for blood? For conquest? Had it been the same thirst that had plagued Hela?

But no, the battle, even inciting the war..it was nowhere _close_ to what Hela had done. And how would banishment help Thor when it was designed to _hurt_ him?

“You remember what happened _last time_ you banished your _child_ ,” she bit out.

Odin seemed taken aback. Perhaps he believed she had forgotten Hela entirely.

Maybe it wasn't entirely Hela's fault that she grew up the way she did. If Odin painted all his children with the same brush, then perhaps the fault had been with Odin all along.

~ ~ ~

She did not expect Thor to return in mere days.

Nor another child lost to her so soon.

~ ~ ~

She did not expect Loki to return a conqueror, either.

~ ~ ~

Heimdall recounted Loki's deeds on Midgard to her and Odin, the guardian's far-seeing eyes watching the events unfold. As Frigga clutched her hands to her chest, listening to Heimdall speak, a memory threaded its way upward from a few days after Hela's banishment.

It had been the dead of night, in her shared marriage bed. Odin had likely thought her asleep. _“I failed her,”_ he had whispered, to himself, to the night, but not to her. Back then, she had clutched that memory tight because it was more vulnerability than she had seen from him yet. She had remembered it because she couldn't say if it was true – she couldn't say if Odin failed Hela, or if Hela failed him.

Now, she knew Odin was right. He _had_ failed Hela. And Thor, and Loki.

Now, Frigga thought she might have failed her children too.

Perhaps all children raised by Odin were under a curse. Or the curse was Odin himself.

And she had doomed her children to his care.

~ ~ ~

Odin was pondering what to do with Loki when Thor brought him back to Asgard.

All it took was one word from his mouth about locking her son away.

The wine glass that had been in her hand shattered against the wall, shards bouncing across the room from the force of Frigga's throw _._ “ _You will stop treating_ _ **my**_ _children the same way you treated_ _ **yours**_ _,”_ she snarled, knuckles white, hand ready to summon a dagger. The rage and fear inside her reminded her of that day so long ago on the battlefield, when Odin and his army charged toward her, ready to take her realm from her.

Odin stared at her, his eye wide in surprise, but that was it. “No,” was what he said, “Not that. Not again.”

He went back to his rooms to decide on a proper punishment. Alone. Always alone.

And alone herself, she promised herself that history would not repeat itself. It would not happen to her son, not to her Loki. He would not be locked away and forgotten, erased from Asgard's memory and history.

Not even if she had to raise up against Odin himself to prevent it.

~ ~ ~

In the end, she did not believe it was her words that swayed Odin. It was more likely that Odin spared Loki such a fate because Loki was not of his blood.

Loki did not have the power, the potential, the same lust for war that ran through Buri's veins, through Bor's, through Odin's, through Hela's, and at one time Thor's. If it was in Loki, it was learned.

Frigga would make sure he would unlearn it. As Thor had.

And while Frigga used her seiðr to test the barriers to Loki's cell and gathered her scrying materials in secret, Frigga had to wonder...would Hela's mother have felt the same about Hela? Would she have helped her daughter, so Hela could have been there when Frigga's two sons came along?

Would she have saved her child from Odin's curse?

Perhaps if Frigga brought Loki back to where he belonged, saved him from the darkness in himself...she could ask Odin if the same was possible for Hela.

She just needed _time_. Time to bring Loki back into the light. Time to see whether she could help Hela – _if_ Hela could be helped.

Her children were not Hela. Her children would never be Hela.

But Hela had only had Odin, and Odin had no interest in saving his children from himself.

Maybe she could fix Odin's mistakes. Free this family of its damnable secrets. Return all of Odin's children's to where they were meant to be.

Frigga could make this right.

In time.

In time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Odin has set a precedent in the comics, of both physically destroying records of history and magically wiping people's minds of history](https://jaggedcliffs.tumblr.com/post/167471184476/the-mighty-thor-everything-burns-18-and-19). So I figured erasing Hela wouldn't be anything new.


End file.
